Introduction

The goal of this project is to examine patterns in author diversity (gender/geographic) in coral reef publications over the past 15 years. We selected a range of peer-reviewed scientific journals across different impact factors and levels (incl. Conservation Letters, PNAS, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Coral Reefs, PlosOne, Marine Policy, Marine Biology, Frontiers in Marine Science, Nature, Science). A team of global coral reef scientists reviewed these articles and extracted relevant data on research area, geography, authorship, and gender.

Notes for co-authors to consider are in bold purple

Summary statistics

This study considered 1683 unique studies published between 2003 and NA. This dataset represents works by 5258 unique authors from 357 different countries

The number of unique authors is going to be wrong as names were not standardized between databases). We need to decide whether we want to spend time cleaning this or not. Variations include Last,First; First Last; Last, First Initial

**Figure 1.** Growth in coral reef publications over the last 15 years, disaggregated by journal

Figure 1. Growth in coral reef publications over the last 15 years, disaggregated by journal

Author characteristics (gender, diversity)

This study found a maximum of 5258 unique authors in the evidence base. This number represents the maximum number of authors as different publication databases listed authors in different formats and thus we were unable to de-duplicate entries that were not an exact match (e.g. Last Name, First Name vs. Last Name, First Initial). 59 authors could not be located on the internet to confirm gender identity. Authors whose gender identity could not be reliably determined based on the presence of identified pronouns, declarations, or author(s) knowledge - were coded as “undetermined.” The majority of authors in coral reef science are male.

**Figure 2.** Gender distribution of authors in coral reef science

Figure 2. Gender distribution of authors in coral reef science

**Figure X.** Frequency of male vs. female authors in first, last, and all other author positions

Figure X. Frequency of male vs. female authors in first, last, and all other author positions

Geographic distribution of research

Research was conducted in 94 countries and 18 territories. The most studied countries were Australia (n=458) and United States (n=238). The figure below shows the geographic distribution of research effort in terms of areas under study (using any type of method, e.g. field studies, laboratory, and desk studies).

**Figure 2 (alternate).** Geographic distribution of study countries with discrete breaks

Figure 2 (alternate). Geographic distribution of study countries with discrete breaks

Think of what country categories to split by - LMIC, global south v. global north. Add threshold for showing individual countries (at least 10 articles published in last 15 years). Do we want to compare to reef area?

The following figures detail contribution of authorship by different genders disaggregated by country of author affiliation. The results presented here represent the countries whos authors have contributed to at least 20 unique articles over the past 15 years.

**Figure X.** Gender distribution by country of affiliation. (A) First, last, and single author gender distribution for top two countries. (B) Proportion of authorship for top two countries. (C) First, last, and single, author gender distribution for all other countries. (D) Proportion of authorship for all other countries

Figure X. Gender distribution by country of affiliation. (A) First, last, and single author gender distribution for top two countries. (B) Proportion of authorship for top two countries. (C) First, last, and single, author gender distribution for all other countries. (D) Proportion of authorship for all other countries

Marine realms studied

**Figure 3. Distribution of research effort over marine realms**

Figure 3. Distribution of research effort over marine realms

Total articles by marine realm
id n
Central Indo-Pacific 691
Tropical Atlantic 331
Eastern Indo-Pacific 200
Western Indo-Pacific 148
Temperate Northern Atlantic 51
Temperate Australasia 46
Tropical Eastern Pacific 43
Temperate Northern Pacific 37
Temperate Southern Africa 4
Southern Ocean 1
Temperate South America 1

Research topics and study types

Research topics were wide-ranging.

Not even sure if this is useful, removed common words such as “coral" and "reef” to get a better picture of what about coral reefs was being studied. This is mapping the frequency of words (excluding stopwords) from the title and abstracts.

**Figure X.** Wordcloud of frequent words appearing in titles and abstracts

Figure X. Wordcloud of frequent words appearing in titles and abstracts

Gender representation in examined journals

Citation rates

## Warning: Removed 2 rows containing missing values (geom_point).
**Figure X.** How often papers authored by different total proportions of gender representation were cited

Figure X. How often papers authored by different total proportions of gender representation were cited

Diversity of authors: analysis

Generally, it seems that most articles are either authored by an entirely in-country team, or an entirely out of country team.

**Figure X.** Distribution of different proportions of whether the author team based in the study country in examined articles.

Figure X. Distribution of different proportions of whether the author team based in the study country in examined articles.

**Figure X.** Frequency of first, last, and single authors being based in the study country

Figure X. Frequency of first, last, and single authors being based in the study country

**Figure X.** A). How often papers are written by a national vs. international collaboration. B).how often male vs. female first and last authored papers were part of a national or international collaboration.

Figure X. A). How often papers are written by a national vs. international collaboration. B).how often male vs. female first and last authored papers were part of a national or international collaboration.